


A Theft, And The Retention Of Courage

by LogicGunn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Captivity, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutism, Poetry, Psychogenic Mutism, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25425814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicGunn/pseuds/LogicGunn
Summary: The rescue, when it finally comes, is indescribably loud and violent.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Ronon Dex & Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan & Rodney McKay
Comments: 34
Kudos: 150





	A Theft, And The Retention Of Courage

The rescue, when it finally comes, is indescribably loud and violent; the rapid  fft-fft-fft of P90s echoing down into the dungeon; the agonising screams of his captors as their bodies are riddled with bullets; the smell of hot iron blood permeating his nostrils, drowning out his own stench and the stink of the cell he’s being kept in. John’s pale face appears in the barred window of the door, and he tells Rodney to close his eyes and protect his ears. Rodney hides his head in his arms as best he can, hears a muted FIRE IN THE HOLE followed by a bang and a thud as the explosion of C4 flings the door to the other side of the cell. His hands are bound to the wall above his head by an iron chain and someone runs for a key as John removes the gag and pats him down, running his hands through his hair, down his face, his naked chest, stomach and thighs. He’s talking to Rodney, mumbling  _ thank god’s _ and  _ I’ve got  _ _ you’s _ and  _ Jesus, Rodney, say something. _ Rodney tries to talk but the words catch in his throat and he can feel hot, wet tears leaking out of his eyes as a sob pushes its way out of him. John pulls Rodney's face into his shoulder as someone removes the iron cuffs, kisses the top of his head over and over as his arms are gently lowered and tells him that he’s safe, they’re going home. There’s a space blanket and a canteen of water and Carson’s worried face, then an entire platoon of marines lining the corridor on both sides as Rodney’s lifted and carried out of the cell in John’s strong arms, with a furious  Teyla leading the way and a stone-faced Ronon on their six. The jumper ride is anticlimactically quick, just a dash through the gate and he’s back in Atlantis after what must be weeks of isolation and starvation and pain, punishments for demands refused and speaking out of turn, the humiliation of perpetual nakedness and of toileting under the watchful eye of his guard. 

Carson keeps him in the infirmary for a week with the lights low and the noise down, pumps him full of vitamins and fluids and antibiotics. Marie brings him high-calorie, nutritionally dense meals and supplement drinks in abundance, helps him stand on the scales every morning and writes the number down on a genuine sheet of paper. Rodney drinks and eats as much as he can, which is very little; after so long without sufficient food his stomach rejects all but the most meagre amounts. Everyone tries to engage him in conversation, but while he has no trouble understanding what’s being said, he finds himself completely unable to respond in kind. He sleeps a lot more than he wakes and showers multiple times a day, fearful that the stench of the cell has followed him home and lingered. Physically he is relatively undamaged, bruises and aches and pains but nothing broken, nothing pierced or burned or torn. Mentally he’s a mess and he knows it. Even after the week is over, his speech doesn’t return; all he has to communicate is a nod or a shake of the head, and while yes/no questions are sufficient for many things, there are far more for which they fall short. 

John doesn’t leave his side the whole time, stands right outside the bathroom door when he pisses, strips and bathes with him when he showers, sleeps at his bedside in a restless heap. When Rodney has nightmares, he is right there murmuring his devotion, soothing him with sweeping touches and gentle kisses. Teyla and Ronon keep vigil in turns;  Teyla sings to him when his muteness overwhelms him, presses her forehead to his every time she leaves, and Ronon supports him for short walks on unsteady legs, pushes him a little further every day. Rodney’s grateful for them both, wishes he had a way to express the depth of his feeling but words are impossible and elusive. John knows what Rodney feels for him, has years' worth of whispered words and post-coital declarations to keep him going, and no one questions his license to remain by Rodney’s side. He makes the decisions on Rodney’s behalf and gets it right every time, such is the depth of their knowledge of each other. When the IOA enquires about Rodney’s return to work, John beats them down with all the military strength that the United States Air Force drilled into him, and Elizabeth threatens to cut them off entirely until such time as Rodney chooses to make contact himself. Very slowly he begins to feel safe, protected, finally accepting the fact that he’s home and not stuck back in that cold, damp, dark cell. But he still can’t speak. 

*** 

No one tells him, and he can’t ask, so when he finds out it’s by accident. One of the junior doctors is talking into a Dictaphone at the nurse’s station and his muted voice carries over the silent room and into Rodney’s cubicle. Rodney catches snippets; his date of birth and his SGC Service Number, a list of his injuries and ailments, the state of his bloodwork. What really catches his ear, though, is the phrase “five months”. Five months what? Since his last full body scan? Last bloodwork? Last prostate exam? It bugs him more and more, and when John returns from the canteen with two cups of coffee he writes out a “How long?” with on a napkin. It takes all of his concentration, willpower, effort to form those two words, and he’s pretty sure he scribbles a little, but John gets his meaning just fine. He places the coffee cups on the table and sits back in his chair, before picking Rodney’s hand back up and kissing his knuckles. 

“Five months, three days, twenty-two hours,” he says with absolute certainty. 

That’s can’t be right. It was a long time, sure, weeks certainly. But months? He peers into John’s eyes, searching for any sign of deception or exaggeration, but there is none. They had him locked up in that cell for five months, denied him food and water, hurt him when he said no, kept him bound and gagged and naked and cold. Rodney looks down at his hands, sees the healing abrasions on his wrists from the metal cuffs, takes in the thinness of his fingers and forearm, and is overcome by an impotent rage. He throws back his blankets and swings his legs out of bed, heaving himself up off the mattress and onto his feet, grabbing hold of the wheeled hospital table as he stumbles. John rushes around the bed and takes hold of him, supporting his weight in strong arms as he tries to stand up straight. Rodney tries to talk, to tell him he what he wants, but the words won’t form and instead he grunts ineffectually, but there’s an understanding in John’s gaze as he guides him to sit back down on the bed and tells him to  _ wait here _ . He slips out of the cubicle and when he returns moments later it’s with a wheelchair and the rest of his team. 

Ronon assists Rodney into the chair and pushes it from behind so that John can stay abreast with him the whole way to his quarters. They’re exactly as he left them except for one thing; the bed is a mess. With a start he realises that John was sleeping in here while he was missing and it warms him to his core even as he aches for all the lost time between them. He stands and makes his way slowly over to the dresser to look in the full-length mirror, the one that overlooks the bed. The face that looks back at him is barely recognisable. It’s gaunt, the cheeks hollowed out and eyes sunken. He looks pale and unkempt; his hair is long and straggly, his beard scruffy and rough, and there’s a weakness to his stature that can’t be denied. In his anger he removes his hospital gown and lets it drop to the floor, uncaring that he’s naked in front of his whole team.  Teyla gasps at the sight of him, and Ronon grumbles a fuck, but neither of them looks away as he scrutinises his own body, the protruding ribs and swollen stomach, the spindly legs and sharp hipbones. He looks emaciated, corpselike. This is not the thinness of youth, it’s the skeletal remains of a thoroughly abused and neglected body. He starts to cry, shaking from his head to his toes with the heaving sobs. John picks the gown up off the floor, wraps it around him and holds him tight. Teyla comes over and strokes his hair, whispering comfort and love into his ear. Ronon pulls all three of them into his arms, holding them up with the strength of his body and bolstering them with the strength of his devotion. 

When they get back to the infirmary, Ronon disappears for a time, returns later with some tools from the military barber; hair clippers and scissors and a razor, some shaving soap and a towel. He sits Rodney in a chair and sets to removing his facial hair with determination, clipping it short then lathering it up and shaving it with long, clean strokes until his face is smooth as silk. He makes a start on the matted hair, and Rodey is surprised to find that he’s a competent barber, cutting it with confidence, tiling Rodney’s head up and down and to the side with careful hands. When John asks, Ronon tells them that in the barracks he often styled the hair of his brothers in arms, that back then he had an undercut and only grew the dreads when he became a runner and such things were unimportant. Rodney’s happy to hear about his life before, Ronon talks about it so rarely, keeping the pain of his loss close to his chest. He settles back into the chair and lets Ronon’s stories wash over him, a necessary comfort. When Ronon is done he brings out a mirror, and Rodney is surprised and pleased to see that if nothing else, his hair is back to normal. At least something is. 

*** 

Rodney returns to the labs a few days later. His speech is still stunted, but he’s finding that he’s increasingly able to communicate with the written word and he’s itching to do something useful. Radek had visited several times while he was in the infirmary, brought him up to speed on the few paltry achievements while he was missing (so much time and effort was put into finding Rodney’s location), and is more than willing to hand the mantle back now that Rodney’s ready to get back to normal. He’s done well in Rodney’s absence, has kept things running smoothly and dealt with issues efficiently as they arose, but there’s a tangible sense of relief in the labs when Rodney walks in, like his leadership was missed. He doesn’t hole up in his office, craves the hubbub of the labs to counter the silence of his isolation, so he moves his laptops to an empty worktable in the main lab and sets up an impromptu workspace where he can make a belated start on the results of some of his personal simulations. Kusanagi brings him a steaming cup of milky coffee and a highly coveted bar of Toblerone from her not-so-secret stash, and Simpson brings him his ergonomic chair from his private lab and her own, personal, gel wrist rest to comfort his protruding wrist bones. He settles down in front of his laptop screens, peeking over the top from time to time to clap eyes on his minions. When they notice they look back and smile or wave, but they don’t crowd him, don’t bombard him with inane questions or whiny requests, just let him acclimatise to being back in a group of people and write up his results in peace. 

Now that Rodney’s back in the labs, John allows himself to step away for brief periods. He spends most of the day sitting at a workstation next to him, quietly writing up reports or playing solitaire on his laptop, but from time to time he goes off to do some kind of manly, military activity with his men or meet with Major Lorne or Elizabeth. When he does, either  Teyla or Ronon (or both) appear in his stead and sit at John’s desk, quietly entertaining themselves in some kind of activity.  Teyla’s obvious about her pursuits; she’s either meditating or writing reports on possible trading partners or engaging some of the women on his staff in quiet conversation, and from time to time she comes over to Rodney and touches him in some way, grounding them both in his physical presence. Ronon, on the other hand, is an enigma; he spends his time with a pencil and a pad of paper, scribbling furiously and occasionally erasing or scoring things out. When he gets up to sharpen his pencil he hovers briefly at Rodney’s shoulder, watches his activities for a few moments, then settles back down in the chair and scribbles some more. Rodney’s confused by it, but doesn’t pry (couldn’t even if he wanted to). He’s comforted by their steadfast presence, especially in John’s absence. 

The few times he finds himself without a member of his team it’s a struggle to keep from freaking out. He counts out the minutes he feels utterly alone (despite being in a crowded room), watching the door with bated breath and feeling increasingly trapped, afraid and uncertain, until one of them finally walks in and smiles at him and all the fear slides off of him, the tension in his chest easing as they sit down again. One time he’s left alone far longer than he can bear, they don’t come and don’t come and don’t come no matter how long he waits, and he feels a cold sweat wash over him, a chill in the air even though he knows the lab is heated. He starts hearing the drip-drip-drip of water falling from the ceiling of the cell, the murmur of activity in the lab morphs into the murmur of the guards outside, and Rodney starts to shut down, can feel his sensory awareness of the room dim, like someone turning down the volume and the light. There's a sudden flurry of motion as his team all burst into the lab, and he looks up and realises that he’s been sitting there with tears falling down his face and Radek has radioed them to come back. Radek makes a pointed comment about their absence and John, Teyla and Ronon all stutter apologies and platitudes and settle down, all three of them, for the rest of the day. John tries to take all the blame, because of course he does, but Teyla and Ronon both interrupt and say it’s on all of them that Rodney was left alone too long. 

They are all fastidious in their uninterrupted presence after that. 

*** 

He’s been putting off meeting with Heightmeyer, arguing over email that there’s no point when he can’t actually talk to her, but after the incident in the labs Elizabeth corners him in the corridor and makes it an order. John accompanies him to the first meeting, sits right at his side while Heightmeyer asks yes/no questions and holds his hand when things start to get tough. In private, John’s has always been open and honest with Rodney about his feelings for him, surprisingly affectionate for someone Rodney has always considered reticent, but all the public hand-holding John's been doing recently is throwing him for a loop. He tries to convey as much with facial gestures but neither John nor Heightmeyer understand. Frustrated, Rodney stands up and starts to pace from one end of the office to the other, then back again. He stops right in front of John and mouths a “Why?”. It takes a lot of effort and Rodney’s disappointed when John still doesn’t get it. He picks up John’s hand and shakes it around a bit looking pointedly at where they are touching. “Why?” he asks again, forcing his mouth to shape and move. 

“Oh,” says John, looking at their entwined hands. “I...” He shakes his head, like he’s the one with psychosomatic muteness. “Because I couldn’t for so long,” he says, finally. 

It’s enough for Rodney, and he sits back down, exhausted from the effort of trying to speak, imagining how he would have felt if it had been John who was missing and him who couldn’t touch for five months. Heightmeyer clears her throat and gets back to the tough questions. Were you raped? Were you forced to perform any sexual acts? Were you forced to harm anyone else? Did they make you choose between one punishment and another? On and on, the questions go. Rodney wants to leave but he knows he has to get this over with, doesn’t want to have to do this again, so he forces himself to shake his head and wills her to understand that it was bad, but it wasn’t that bad, and he knows logically why it’s so hard for him to speak but he just can’t make it any easier. She takes pity on him after an hour, gives him a reprieve until the next day, where the questions get a lot more specific and a lot less benign. Rodney pulls strength from everywhere that John is touching him and answers every question, no matter how mortifying, but there’s a sense of failure when he still makes no progress on verbalisation. 

When the initial trauma therapy is finished, they move on to cognitive behavioural therapy. Rodney’s done this before (had to, to get back behind the wheel after a bad car crash) but it’s kind of difficult when you can’t communicate. He sends  Heightmeyer emails before and after each session and writes things down when it’s important, but nothing makes up for his lack of speech. Talking is intrinsic to his being, his whole life revolves around explaining concepts and motivating people and saving their asses when shit hits the fan, and he can’t do any of that if he can’t quickly communicate his needs. He grows frustrated with  Heightmeyer , and with himself, and storms out of a session, palming the door open in a hurry and rushing out of the room and down the corridor,  Heightmeyer’s voice calling out to him and John, who’d been waiting outside  Heightmeyer’s office, rushing to keep up. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his quarters, ignoring John’s pleas to wait up, trying but failing to keep John locked out. In an uncharacteristic display of strength and anger, he lifts up his bed and tips it over, yelling inarticulately to anyone that can hear him. He is sick of this, done with it, and he grunts with effort as he lifts up his desk chair to throw it off the balcony and into the sea. It hits the water with a noisy splash, and Rodney collapses in a heap by the railing. John, having finally broken through the locked door, sits down next to him and pulls him into his arms, cradling him as he cries angrily and fists his hands in his t-shirt. The tears are relentless, the sobs loud. He cries so hard his head hurts and his nose runs, but still he can’t stop, and he falls asleep out there on the balcony in John’s arms. 

*** 

Rodney wakes up in bed alone, panics for a moment until he sees Ronon under a blanket on the couch in the moonlight. He turns on the bedside lamp and Ronon sits up immediately. Rodney looks around the room but there’s no sign of John. 

“He’s gone off-world,” says Ronon. “Lorne’s team needed a hand relocating some villagers after a mudslide.” 

It’s important work, worthy of the military commander, but at least it’s not too bad, no one’s hurt or missing. Still, that kind of thing will keep John off-world for a while and Rodney laments that. He sighs, then throws back his covers and reaches for his laptop. Ronon stops him with a hand on his arm. “Hungry,” he says, and Rodney’s not sure if it’s a statement or a question, but he’s kind of hungry too so they get up and dressed and make their way to the mess hall. It’s 0200 but Atlantis is a 24/7 base. The counter isn’t staffed at this time of night, but there are foods left out for the taking, sandwiches in a chiller and soup in a kettle, plates of cookies and tarts under clear plastic wrap. Rodney grabs a coffee from the pot and a couple of cookies, Ronon serves himself a massive bowl of soup, two sandwiches and three tarts of various fillings. They sit at their usual table in the corner at the back, side by side so they can both see all of the exits and the door to the balcony. Rodney dips his cookies in his coffee, eats slowly, chews methodically, while Ronon inhales his food and washes it down with a glass of fruit juice. When they’re done Ronon pulls a couple of sheets of folded up paper out of his pocket. 

“I wrote something,” he says. Rodney nods, recognising the pencil scribblings from the lab. When Ronon stands up, Rodney makes to stand too, but Ronon gestures him to sit down in his seat. He moves to the end of the table and stands up straight, lifting the papers up and peering at them. 

“A Theft, and the Retention of Courage,” says Ronon, and Rodney can hear the capitalisation. Ronon begins, and what follows could be called a poem, epic in length and extremely awkward in word choice, but touching something hidden deep in Rodney’s chest. It’s in English, which is not a surprise because Ronon has been learning written English for a while now. The verses describe loss, isolation, fear and bravery, culminating in the joy of being found. Rodney realises it’s an ode to both his own experience and Ronon’s time as a runner; realises that for all the fear, pain and humiliation Rodney felt at the hands of his captors, Ronon not only sympathised but could empathise with that feeling of helplessness, that he knows from experience what Rodney can’t articulate. When he’s done, he sits back down and pulls Rodney’s tearful face into his shoulder. 

“I have an idea,” he says. “But it’s going to need Teyla too.” 

*** 

John checks in after breakfast and Elizabeth calls Rodney to the control room as a kindness. John’s filthy, matted with so much mud that even his hair is lying flat against him. He greets Rodney warmly when he comes on screen, and tells him he’ll be home ASAP. 

“I just gotta do a few things here, okay? Might be tomorrow.” 

Rodney nods and smiles, content to spend his time with Ronon and Teyla now that he has seen John safe and well, if a little bit unkempt. When John signs off, Elizabeth turns to Rodney with a dangerous look in her eye, like she’s about to do something and- oh, Jesus Christ, she’s wrapping her arms around him like she’s his mother. In front of Chuck, no less. 

“I’m just so glad you’re home,” she says, wetly. Rodney pats her on the back a little and squirms out of her arms. She squeezes his shoulders with her hands then heads back into her office. Rodney turns to Chuck, raises a finger in warning, and Chuck slams his mouth shut and mimes zipping it. Rodney nods at him, but he knows who to come after if hug-gate gets out to the general population of Atlantis. 

He meets Teyla and Ronon in the gym as instructed, and is surprised when Ronon hands out hand-written copies of his poem to both him and Teyla. Ronon gestures them to sit down while he stands before them and recites his poem again. Teyla smiles all the way through, but Rodney’s heard this already. He's not entirely sure what’s going on here, why he has to be here for Ronon to introduce Teyla to his creative masterpiece. They both clap when Ronon’s done and he sits down next to Rodney as Teyla gets up. She takes Ronon’s place in front of them and holds the poem in front of her close to her face. She scrutinises it a bit then starts to recite it. “A Theft, and the Retention of Courage,” she begins, then slowly and haltingly works her way through the verses. Rodney listens to the poem for the third time, doing his best to keep his face politely neutral when in truth he’s no more interested in poetry than he is horoscopes, clapping along with Ronon when Teyla finally makes it to the end. She sits down with them and the two of them look to Rodney expectantly. 

“Your turn McKay,” says Ronon when Rodney doesn’t understand.

His turn? He’s mute! How the hell do they expect him to recite a poem?! He gestures at his mouth, angry, like they don’t know the problems he’s been having since he was rescued, no, since he was kidnapped. He stands up and makes to leave, but Ronon’s up like a shot and grabs his arm in a firm grip. 

“I know you think you can’t do it,” he says. “All I want you to do is try.” 

Rodney turns around, incensed, but Ronon’s sincere in his intentions and Teyla’s smiling encouragingly. Ronon lets go and sits back down next to her as Rodney stands there with his mouth open. He repositions himself in front of them and looks down at the poem, written in Ronon’s blocky penmanship. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. Ronon and Teyla sit in patient silence, and Rodney thinks about leaving before the humiliation sets in but he doesn’t. He reads through the poem, sounding out each syllable in his mind as he goes. This is ridiculous, it should be so easy to recite this, effortless. When he gets to the end he starts at the beginning again, this time mouthing the words as he goes. By the time he gets halfway through he realises that he’s whispering, little snippets of ghostly sound escaping his mouth and throat. He finishes then returns to the beginning once more, this time pushing out sounds with intent. He starts a little scratchy, a little slow. 

“A Theft-” he starts, pauses, looks up. Ronon and  Teyla both smile at the sounds he’s making, but neither does anything to disrupt his flow. “-and the Retention of Courage,” he finishes. He did it, he spoke words. He carries on, starting with the first verse. It’s not the most fluid delivery, but it’s audible and solid and real, and he relaxes into it more and more with each line spoken. It’s somehow easier to speak someone else's words rather than his own, and after a while it’s like a dam has been opened and he can’t stop. When he gets to the end, both Ronon and Teyla jump up and pull him into a three-person hug. Rodney pulls back and looks for something else to say, something that will tell his two friends how they make him feel. It's a monumental moment, choosing his first words after all that, but he settles for something simple. 

“Thank you. Both of you.” 

“You are welcome, Rodney,” says Teyla. 

“What she said,” says Ronon. 

*** 

The first thing Rodney does is knock on Heightmeyer’s door. When she calls him in he sits down and immediately starts to recount his capture, beginning at the time he was run down in an open field, lagging behind his team-mates when he fell and twisted his ankle. By the time they realised he wasn’t right behind them it was too late, he was captured and carried through the stargate to locations unknown. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of his rescue, what it took to find him (though he has an idea what it took to get him out, considering that he heard the shots and the screams). He feels no remorse for the men his team killed, no lingering doubts over whether they should have left them alive or not, no wish that John had found some mercy in his heart. The men that held him were ruthless, knew just how to hurt him without permanently damaging him, did their best to get him to do their bidding. He’s immensely proud that he held them off for five whole months, even though Heightmeyer tells him that there is no shame in capitulating to torture. Rodney baulks at that because he knows that if it really was torture he would have given in like he did with Kolya, but Heightmeyer shakes her head and says no. Kolya’s brand of torture was different, more immediate, but just because his captors tried to break him down more slowly doesn't mean it wasn’t torture. They were playing a long game. Rodney doesn't know what to do with that information, but he realises that he doesn't have to have all the answers today. He’s started to open up and that is enough for now. He leaves Heightmeyer’s office in a better mood than he’s been in since he was rescued and heads down to the labs. 

“Alright people, I want updates on your projects in my inbox an hour ago. We’re going to be streamlining the research you’ve been doing for the past five months into two lists, immediately useful and put on the back burner. Simpson, I want the data you’ve collated from the power redistribution simulations and your suggestions for changes. Kusanagi, go over the results of the stellar drift simulations and match the new positions to known stargate addresses. Zelenka, you’re with me.” He steps into his office with Radek then quickly pokes his head back into the lab. “And someone tell Parrish that the cultivation of the foodstuffs from M2A-422 is his immediate priority. Those vegetable tarts they make are divine. Well? Get it done.” 

He slips into the office and closes the door against the renewed enthusiasm of his department. Radek is leaning against his desk with his arms folded. 

“It is good to hear you, my friend,” he says. 

“It’s good to be heard,” replies Rodney as he grabs some mission essential gear. “I’m going off-world for a couple of days to give John a hand with the relocation efforts. You’ll be in charge.” 

“Tell the Colonel hello. Are you taking a jumper?” 

“I am.” 

“You should take a marine too.” 

“Oh, come on.” 

“The Colonel will not be happy if you don’t.” 

Rodney sighs out loud. “Fine.” 

“Good. I will see you in a couple of days.” 

Radek looks a little nervous, but that’s understandable all things considered. Rodney wonders idly why he isn’t more concerned about going off-world again, but dismisses it out of hand. If he was afraid of every little thing that could happen, he’d never get out of bed. He radios Chuck to see who is next on the list of marines who are geared up and ready to go through the gate, asks him to send them to the jumper bay while he gears up himself. It feels strange to be putting on a tac vest. It’s a new one, his old one was taken from him and disposed of when he was captured, so he has to readjust all the straps to fit. It took months to break in his old one, and that was back when he was off-world more than he was back in Atlantis, before they had enough Zed-P-Ms to power the whole city. The holster is a little stiff too, but he’ll get used to it. He grabs an M9, then makes his way to the jumper bay where Captain Crown is waiting, standing tall and solid, not a blonde hair out of place. 

“Doc,” she says. 

“Captain. We’re going to go help with the relocation effort.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You don’t have to ‘sir’ me, I’m not military.” 

Crown smirks. “I think the Colonel would disagree, sir.” 

Rodney rolls his eyes as he starts pre-flight checks. He hasn’t done this in a long time, but it’s like riding a bicycle, everything in the correct order. He radios Chuck, then flies down the tower to the gate room. When the wormhole  engages he flies straight through, taking the jumper the seven miles to the village. It’s an absolute mess, the landslide covered everything in thick, viscous mud. There are marines all over pulling people’s prized possessions out of windows, corralling livestock and organising villagers into empty jumpers. John’s standing in the centre overseeing the efforts and calling out orders. He turns when Rodney flies close, frowns as he lands it next to the other jumpers. Captain Crown precedes him down the ramp and salutes her commanding officer. When John spots Rodney behind her he waves her off to help assign people into groups to be transported. 

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, McKay,” he begins, putting his hands on his hips, “but you can turn right around and fly back to Atlantis. It’s dangerous out here. There’s enough to do without-” 

“John,” says Rodney. John’s jaw snaps shut and his eyes widen. 

“You-you're...?” 

“Yeah.” 

“That’s great!” 

“I know!” 

“You’re still going home.” 

“I came to help. I need to do something, I just...” 

John sighs and drops his hands down. He eyes Rodney critically, squinting at the straps of his tac vest. “Come here,” he orders. Rodney comes over and John starts tugging at straps, pulling some tighter and loosening others. He kneels down and starts tightening the holster as well, and Rodney swallows his giddiness; the sight of John’s mouth so close to his inner thigh is a little too much in public. 

“You can ferry people from here to the alpha site,” says John as he stands up. “It’s ten klicks North West. It’s actually closer to the stargate than the village. No detours, no sightseeing, no getting out of the jumper. You land, you let them out, you come straight back here. Understood?” 

Rodney intends to say yes, but instead he says “I love you.” 

John’s mouth softens into a dopey smile. “I love you too,” he says. “Go on, back in the jumper, I’ll send Captain Crown’s refugees your way.” 

Rodney turns and walks back to the jumper, sitting in the pilot’s chair. While he waits for Crown to load up the villagers, he pulls Ronon’s poem out of his pocket and recites it aloud. “A Theft, and the Retention of Courage...”


End file.
